1. Field of the Invention
The present application relates to the art of electronic monitoring of persons and their activities and, more particularly, to collecting and storing physiological information and other information and data regarding the humans being monitored. The preferred embodiments of the present application will be described in connection with methods and apparatus for monitoring and collecting data relating to criminal offenders, specifically data on alcohol use by the offenders, and, accordingly, the primary focus will be placed on alcohol and/or ethanol sensing and data collection techniques. However, it is to be appreciated that the preferred embodiments have other uses and provide advantages in other applications such as, for example, in monitoring criminal and non-criminal persons and collecting physiological and other data relating to those persons for use in parole compliance reporting and recording, medical studies, medicament usage compliance, and a wide variety of other reasons.
2. Description of Prior Art
Many systems are currently available for determining the location of subjects, such as criminal offenders and victims by means of electronic monitoring at fixed locations, such as at the subject's residence. These systems are commonly known as “house arrest” systems and they typically utilize a body-worn device which typically transmits a signal to a receiver powered by an electrical outlet communicating to a central monitoring service over a standard telephone line hardwired at the offender's residence.
Such house arrest systems are useful when offenders are sentenced in a criminal proceeding to remain within the confines of their own residence for a period of time specified in the sentence. This reduces the demands placed upon the already crowded penal system while enabling the courts to supervise these individuals through parole departments by using remote electronic means. However, for certain other crimes such as drug or alcohol use, the sentencing may impose restrictions only on the further consumption of drugs or alcohol without imposing such geographical limitations. Domestic crime sentences may impose geographical limitations which restrict access to single residences, for example. Accordingly, highly portable tracking and monitoring devices have been proposed for monitoring the activities of criminal or other offenders while enabling them to rejoin society in a productive way such as during work and family hours.
One such highly mobile system but without drug or alcohol sensing capabilities is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 6,014,080 wherein a tamper resistant body-worn tracking device is provided for use by offenders or potential victims in a wireless communication system receiving signals from a global positioning system (GPS). The tracking device directly communicates special coordinates to multiple remote sites. The tracking device is an enclosed case worn on a limb of a person. The case contains a battery, a signaling device, and a circuit board containing a field programmable gate array, a wireless data modem, a conventional GPS receiver, and a matched filtering GPS receiver.
Another example is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,731,757. There, a portable locator or tracking apparatus for continuous location determination of subjects communicates with a body-worn, non-removable, tamper resistant transceiver and a central database system. In this system, a wireless network cell site processes wireless signals and switches the communication through a mobile switching office to a public switched telephone network. The communication from the subject's portable tracking device is routed to a central database system where response decisions for notification to parole and probation officers, victims, and other law enforcement officials are made based on schedule rules and location constraints provided by a supervising agency such as a parole or probation board. Essentially, an “electronic fence” is downloaded into the portable tracking device worn by the offender wherein the offender's movements within the area defined by the fence can be determined and logged so that appropriate alarms may be generated if the offender wanders from the predefined zone.
Systems of the type described above have met with some success. Other systems have been proposed as well wherein an emphasis is made towards sensing the alcohol consumption activities of the device wearer. However, there exists a need for improved monitoring systems of the type described above such as monitoring systems having a monitoring network with the ability to selectively interrogate each of the portable monitoring apparatus within the network from a central location substantially in real time and as deemed necessary or desired such as to determine whether a subject has consumed alcohol and, further, with the ability to distribute and initiate software upgrades to the operating systems of the respective portable monitoring apparatus or to other software components or modules such as algorithms, for example, within the system. The former improvement provides an ease of use of the overall system and the latter improvement ensures a uniformity throughout the system and can provide enhanced performance or improved functional compliance. In addition, there exists a need for an improved portable monitoring apparatus which has an enhanced ability to detect one or more specific conditions of the offender being monitored. Still further, there exists a need to improve the mechanical construction of the portable monitoring apparatus worn by the criminal offenders such as by providing an improved tamper evident band secured about a portion of the offenders body.